


Cold Comfort

by BunniesofDoom



Category: RWBY
Genre: Angst, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Dreams and Nightmares, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Fluff and Angst, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Nightmares, Post-Volume 3 (RWBY), Pre-Volume 4 (RWBY), Ruby Rose (RWBY) Needs a Hug, Ruby Rose (RWBY) has PTSD
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-15
Updated: 2021-02-15
Packaged: 2021-03-16 19:13:43
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 891
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29458797
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BunniesofDoom/pseuds/BunniesofDoom
Summary: Ruby's nightmares are a lot worse than they used to be.
Relationships: Ruby Rose & Taiyang Xiao Long, Ruby Rose & Yang Xiao Long
Comments: 1
Kudos: 47





	Cold Comfort

**Author's Note:**

> This is set after Volume 3, but before Ruby leaves for Mistral. Content warning for mentions of canonical character death. Enjoy!

Once upon a time, whenever Ruby had a bad dream, she always knew that she could go to her older sister for comfort. Yang would always let her crawl into bed with her and wipe her tears and tell her funny stories until Ruby fell asleep laughing instead of crying. Half the time Yang would already be awake, waiting for her—Ruby is convinced that her older sister has some sort of sixth sense to tell her whenever Ruby is upset. And even when she was asleep, her sister never got mad at her for waking her up. If anything, Yang would get more upset to see Ruby looking exhausted the next morning because she didn't come to her.

It had been reassuring, to know that her sister was right next door, whenever Ruby needed her.

These days, Ruby doesn't have that luxury. Sure, Yang is still next door, but Ruby knows that she'll get yelled at if she tries to go to her sister after a nightmare. Plus, her sister has enough problems of her own to deal with without Ruby bothering her with bad dreams. Ruby's a big girl now. She got into Beacon Academy. She can deal with a few nightmares on her own.

But these days, after the fall of Beacon, after her team was scattered to the winds, after she'd lost her school and Yang lost her arm and she'd watched Pyrrha and Penny die right in front of her without being able to anything to save them, Ruby's nightmares are a lot worse than they used to be. And although she shouldn't be burdening anyone with her problems, it would be nice to have someone to go about them.

But Yang is out, for obvious reasons. When she was younger, and Yang wasn't around, she'd go to her dad for comfort, but—that's not really an option right now either. Although he tries not to show it too much, Ruby knows that he's really worried about her and Yang, and he spends a lot of time taking care of her sister, who rarely leaves her room these days. Ruby doesn't want to be the one to add to his stress.

So instead, whenever she jerks awake, gasping, with tears stinging her eyes after another dream of Pyrrha burning before her eyes or Penny tangled in her own wires, she just stares up at the ceiling. She'll stay up counting the cracks on the ceiling or watching the shadows move across the walls until she feels calm enough to go to sleep.

She doesn't get a lot of sleep these days, but hey, at least she's not bothering anyone.

She tries her best to keep her exhaustion under wraps, but she's pretty sure that her dad notices after several mornings in a row when she comes down to the breakfast table half-asleep with obvious dark circles under her eyes.

"Are you sure that you're feeling okay?" her father asks, setting a plate of pancakes down on the table in front of her. It's just the two of them, since on the rare occasion that Yang actually eats breakfast, she takes it up to her room.

"Of course!" She shoots her father a bright, reassuring smile, digging into her pancakes.

"And you're sleeping okay?" he presses her, still looking concerned.

"Yep!" she chirps, taking a swig of her orange juice. "Everything's fine."

It would be easier, Ruby muses, if being in her room at home didn't feel so alien to her. After being at Beacon for so long, she longs for the familiarity of her dorm room—and the sounds of her teammates sleeping beside her. Without the sounds of the other girls to fall asleep to, Ruby finds herself tossing and turning for hours every night.

But what else is she supposed to do? She can't bother her dad with this, Yang wants nothing to do with her, Weiss is in Atlas, and Blake is—gone. It's up to Ruby to deal with this.

She's surprised that night when her dad makes a suggestion over dinner. "Why don't you take Zwei up to bed with you?"

"Huh?" Ruby mumbles around her mouthful of spaghetti. "Hasn't he been staying with Yang?"

Her father nods. "He has, but I've been worried that he's going to jar her arm while it's still healing. It'd be a weight off my mind if he went with you instead."

Ruby beams at him. "Of course! I'd be happy to." She ducks under the table where Zwei is waiting at her feet, wagging his tail. It's definitely not because she's been feeding him scraps from her plate the entire meal, no sir. "What do you think, Zwei? Do you want to have a sleepover?"

Zwei barks happily in approval.

That night, Ruby gets ready for bed and curls up under the covers. Zwei jumps onto the bed, digging at the covers and making a little nest right next to her shoulder. Lulled by the sound of the dog snoring in her ear, Ruby falls asleep faster than she has in weeks. And when she wakes gasping from her nightmares, Zwei licks her face clean of tears and she pets his soft fur and hugs him to her chest until she's calm enough to doze off again.

It's the best she's slept in weeks.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading! Please leave a review if you liked it.
> 
> Just a reminder that I do take requests for fics, so if there's an idea that you'd like to see me write, feel free to message me and if I like it, I might end up writing something for it.


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